Thank you

Remember:

The soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines we honor on Memorial Day deserve glory, those embracing their folded flags deserve our gratitude, and those living physically or psychologically mutilated post-service lives deserve the best care we can provide.

From Normandy to Okinawa, from the oceans’ deeps to the mountain passes of Korea, we take a day to say “Thank you” to our sons who remain there still. Few are the men who wish to die for their country, but many accepted that death might call for them in service of country and continued under 80-pound packs in the jungles of Vietnam or along the ship’s prop shaft in the diesel pits. There they were, at their station, when the reaper arrived in the form of shell, shrapnel, or disease. ....

Memorial Day commemorates those who surrendered the right to the preservation of self, thereby guaranteeing the protection of the whole. Some died, others are living. The day is an accounting — who now remains to remember? .... (more)

Luther Ray Abel, "‘No, Thank God, Americans Don’t Say That’," National Review, May 28, 2023.